Ona Gritz writes memoir, essays, & poetry for adults, and fiction & verse novels for children and teens.

Her memoir Everywhere I Look received the Clara Johnson Award in Women’s Literature, the Pencraft Best Book Award in Memoir, the Readers’ Choice Gold Award for Best Adult Book, and was named an Independent Book Review 2024 Must-Read, a Kirkus Reviews’ “Indie Worth Discovering,” and the StoryTrade Nonfiction Book of the Year.

Ona’s nonfiction has appeared widely, including in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Utne Reader, Brevity, Parents, The Rumpus, and River Teeth. Her honors include two Notable mentions in The Best American Essays and a Best Life Story in Salon.

Ona’s 2024 verse novel Take a Sad Song was selected as one of Kirkus Reviews’ best YA titles of the year. Her picture book, Tangerines and Tea, My Grandparents and Me, was named Best Alphabet Book by Nick Jr. Family Magazine and a Best Book of the Year by Scholastic Parent & Child Magazine.

Ona’s poetry collection Geode was a finalist for the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award. Her poems can be found in Ploughshares, The Bellevue Literary Review, One Art, Catamaran Literary Reader, Stone Gathering, SWWIM, Literary Mama, and elsewhere. In 2020, she won The Poetry Archive Now: Wordview 2020 Project.

A columnist for Literary Mama for many years, Ona is currently the blog editor for Wordgathering. She lives with her husband, writer Daniel Simpson, near Philadelphia. Together, they teach online poetry and prose workshops through The Writers Voice of Central New York.